18 Chapter 18: Intense Battle

Chapter 18: Intense Battle

This was not going to be an easy fight for Julius. He could use his Mythological Creature form, but he didn't know if it would work the same way with a corrupted existence like Artoria Alter.

The Servant looked around.

"A Reality Marble? Who are you?" She braced herself to fight, grabbing her sword with both hands.

"I'm just a traveler." Julius responded with a smile. "You seemed powerful, so I wanted to try my newly acquired powers in a real battle."

Saber wasn't amused by his words. "Fool, I will make you see your mistake in mocking me."

With a terrifying explosion of mana, she appeared in front of Julius as she was already swinging the sword.

The magus widened his eyes as he saw that this version of Artoria's speed was much higher than the original. However, he wasted no time.

As if he were a ghost, Julius got behind the Servant using the close range version of [Travel].

"!!!" Artoria was dumbstruck at what seemed like teleportation. "A magician?"

Luckily, her experience allowed her to react. She tried to redirect the attack, however, she suddenly felt a cramp throughout her body that prevented her from moving.

'My Beyonder abilities don't use Magical Energy, so Magic Resistance can't stop them.' Julius thought. 'Also, if I combine it with my Reality Marble I can get some extremely useful moves.'

Wasting no time, Julius used Reinforcement magecraft and slammed Saber into her face, sending her spinning into the air.

He reappeared behind her while she was still flying to try and follow up with a combo. Saber recovered instantly, however, and raised her sword from an angle Julius couldn't see. The magus felt his Beyonder intuition give the red alert, and he backed away.

He managed to escape the attack that went for his neck, but still received a shallow cut to his shoulder.

Saber expertly maneuvered through the air and landed one foot on the ground as she followed up with another slash to the magus' neck.

The latter ducked, effectively avoiding the attack. Another mana blast came from Artoria and she managed to redirect her sword with full force downwards.

'This time I did manage to copy it.' Julius rejoiced.

There was a burst of mana very similar to the one Artoria had used, but this time it came from the magus.

He used [Blink] to advance only a few centimeters, which allowed him to gain an advantage. Saber received a blow to the ribs that knocked all the air out of her lungs.

"Gah!" She cringed for a moment in pain, for this blow had been so much harder than the last.

Julius seized the opportunity. He jumped and spun in the air, then kicked her in the face.

Luckily for her, the moment she received the blow to the ribs, she focused on defense. The damage she received was not as severe as it could have been. She somersaulted in the air and pushed herself back with one hand. She held the sword with both hands.

"Excalibur Morgan!" An energy beam was fired towards Julius.

The magus used [Blink] to the side to avoid the attack. Saber then held the beam and moved Excalibur Morgan to target Julius's new position.

He just kept fading in and out to the side, unable to get any closer.

[Travel] had a fundamental drawback in combat, which was the user's inability to see the enemy while traveling. At first, it might not seem that important, but in a battle to the death neither side would stand still, and losing sight of the other for a second could spell defeat.

It is for this reason that Julius only used [Blink] while he was fighting.

Fortunately, for Julius at least, Saber wasn't capable of spamming her Noble Phantasm like it was a basic attack from a video game.

She frowned seeing that she didn't accomplish anything. Although, in fact, that was not entirely true.

Julius had advanced towards Sequence 5, and with that he could now last much longer in combat, but that didn't mean he could keep the Reality Marble while he used skills constantly.

'I have to finish this quickly, I still have to do that...' He thought as he pondered on a way to end this battle.

"Who are you, foreigner?" Artoria asked with a frown. "Are you a member of Chaldea? The information I received did not mention anyone as strong as you."

Julius suddenly had an idea.

"Who am I? Right, neither Leff Lainur nor Solomon could know who I am." As he spoke, countless little birds appeared around him.

Julius used Illya's Storch Ritter, but while the homunculus could only summon a very limited number of them, he was instantly surrounded by over fifty birds made of magical energy.

Artoria Alter was shocked, though not by the Storch Ritter.

"Wh-what? How do you know those names?" She questioned as she prepared to go all in, this guy knew too much.

Julius chuckled. "Now, now, how could I not know?" He held up a hand, priming the birds' laser beams. "Why do you think I'm here distracting you?"

Suddenly, the Reality Marble cracked and the two of them returned to the ruined Fuyuki.

Artoria's eyes widened and it was then that a hell of beams of light broke loose. A great smoke screen was raised.

When the barrage was over, Artoria emerged unscathed from the smoke, her Magic Resistance having fully protected her.

However, she did not seem pleased by this. Instead, she seemed frantic.

'Where has he gone? I can't sense his magical energy anymore!' Quickly, an idea crossed her mind. 'The Greater Grail!'

At this point, she deactivated all of her defenses, focusing on running as fast as possible.

In the same instant that she dropped her defenses, her chest exploded.

"This ends here." Julius declared as his arm was impaling the Servant from side to side.

Artoria couldn't do anything but spit out blood.

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Julius can't risk using Mythological Creatire form since he doesn't know how much it will tire him.

Also, usually, I have the wiki to search for stuff I don't know about, but with the phone it's a pain in the ass, so excuse me if there's some incorrect things these days.